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CONDITIONS  OF  SUCCESS  IN 
PUBLIC  IJBfirv.    OF 

*  *    *    •     *  >  i  j  . 

•  .••«  •     » •    *  *  I  •  '» • '   • 


AN   ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  IN  SANDERS  THEATRE  BEFORE  THE 

STUDENTS    OF    HARVARD    UNIVERSITY 

Honor  Day,  Nov.  si,  1900 


BY 

GEORGE    F.   HOAR 

11 


NEW  YORK 

THOMAS    Y.     CROWELL    &    CO 

PUBLISHERS 


J  t€nu 


hit  I  ^  L  ®y<+ 


Copyright,  1901, 
By  Thomas  Y.  Crowell  &  Company. 


'    ■>«    >     ■>      ■«     o 


CONDITIONS1  .'.Ofe  ACCESS 

*        •      >    o       ■>     i( 

IN    PUBLIC   LIFE. 


CAMBRIDGE. 

I  am  not  sure  that  the  gentlemen  to  whom  I 
am  to  speak  account  it  always  an  undiluted 
pleasure  to  be  sent  for  by  the  Dean.  But  I  am 
glad  to  obey  his  summons.  I  am  glad  to  have 
a  fair  excuse  to  visit  the  College  and  to  behold 
again  the  face  of  my  beloved  Alma  Mater.  In 
my  younger  days  the  ladies  who  gathered  here 
at  Commencement,  and  Phi  Beta,  and  Class 
Day  were  the  great  attraction.  But  for  me  that 
time  is  long  ago  gone  by.  I  am  in  the  condi- 
tion of  Campbell's  sailor, 

•*  I  have  no  sweetheart,  said  the  lad, 
But,  parted  long  from  one  another, 
Great  was  the  longing  that  I  had 
To  see  my  mother." 


8G90I 5 


4  CONDITIONS    OF    SUCCESS 

I  certainly  do  not  come  here  to  preach.  It 
waS/t^ie  fashion;  ^jianjy  years  ago  to  ask  men  in 
public  life  trQ  ,the  colleges  at  the  Commence- 
'inpittfs&fsbn  W<  deliver  orations  on  the  scholar's 
mission,  or  the  relation  of  educated  men  to  the 
State,  or  the  higher  education,  or  various 
kindred  topics.  They  used  sometimes  to  take 
advantage  of  the  occasion  to  pay  back  the  criti- 
cism which  they  get  so  abundantly  from  the 
University,  when  the  scholar  of  the  University 
gives  his  opinion  upon  matters  in  which  he  is 
no  scholar,  and  the  man  in  political  life  returns 
the  compliment  by  giving  educators  his  opinion 
about  matters  in  which  he  has  no  education. 

In  general,  the  young  men  spent  the  hour 
devoted  to  the  address  outside  on  the  grass  or 
on  the  chains  or  the  fence,  while  the  speaker 
was  listened  to  inside  by  their  mothers,  and 
grandmothers,  and  aunts.  I  am  proud  to  say 
these  ladies  used  to  declare  themselves  to  be 
much  gratified  by  the  sentiments  of  the  dis- 
course. But  I  have  long  withdrawn  from  that 
field  of  labor. 

I  have  not  found,  in  my  experience,  that  the 


IN    PUBLIC    LIFE.  b 

new  generations  care  much  for  the  preaching  of 
the  old  ones.  If  the  youth  find  your  example 
to  his  taste,  he  will  sometimes  follow  it.  But 
he  will  not  alter  his  course  for  your  preaching. 
Perhaps  I  may,  from  the  experience  of  a  long 
life,  report  something  which  may  be  of  use  to 
you  in  the  road  you  are  to  follow.  I  think  that 
a  liberal  education  is  sometimes  a  great  comfort 
to  men  who  are  good  for  nothing  but  the 
humblest  manual  occupations.  It  is  a  great 
solace  under  the  misfortune  of  lifelong  ill- 
health,  or  the  curse  of  inherited  wealth.  But 
you  are,  in  general,  educated  and  expected  to 
do  the  brain  work  of  the  Republic  —  to  do 
high  thinking  in  high  places ;  to  sit  on  the 
Bench ;  to  be  leaders  at  the  Bar,  and  in  public 
life,  and  in  the  pulpit;  to  become  famous  in 
literature  and  art;  to  conduct  great  business 
enterprises,  which  often  demand  all  the  quali- 
ties needed  for  the  conduct  of  great  States  ;  to 
make  science  the  healer  of  sickness  and  pain,  or 
the  handmaid  of  manufacture  and  of  labor,  and 
in  that  way  to  lift  the  burden  under  which 
humanity  is  bowed  and  bent.     We  hear  a  good 


6  CONDITIONS    OF    SUCCESS 

deal  of  late  about  the  strenuous  life.  But  your 
work  in  this  world  is  to  be  done  with  your 
brains.  The  object  of  your  education  is  not  to 
fit  you  to  hunt  grizzly  bears.  Leatherstocking 
and  Chingachgook  are  very  attractive  charac- 
ters. But  neither  of  them  was  graduated  at 
Harvard.  Boating,  and  racing,  and  football, 
and  athletics  are  manly  sports,  and  doubtless 
develop  manly  quality.  But  they  belong  to 
the  period  of  youth,  and  belong  to  the  body,  not 
to  the  mind. 

"  JVon  viribus  aut  velocitatibus  ant  celeritate 
covporum  res  magnce  geruntur  sed  consilio  auctor- 
itate  sentential 

A  great  many  men  who  are  quite  indifferent 
to  their  work  in  college  apply  themselves  to  it 
eagerly  when  they  get  into  the  law  school  or 
the  medical  school  or  study  for  their  calling 
in  life.  They  see  the  true  value  of  what  they 
are  doing  when  they  study  for  a  profession,  and 
that  success  in  life  is  to  depend  on  making  the 
best  use  of  their  time  then.  But  in  my  opinion 
the  work  of  the  undergraduate  is  of  more  con- 
sequence, if  you  think  only  of  success  in  the 


IN    PUBLIC    LIFE.  7 

calling  to  which  he  is  to  devote  himself,  than 
even  the  work  in  a  professional  school.  There 
are  few  of  the  high  places  in  this  country  in 
which  a  good  English  style,  the  gift  of  speaking 
well,  literary  taste,  knowledge  of  the  best  lit- 
erature in  our  own  and  foreign  tongues,  the 
power  of  clear  and  orderly  reasoning  are  not  of 
the  greatest  value.  You  will,  in  all  probability, 
get  these  here  or  will  lay  a  foundation  for  them 
here,  or  nowhere.  If  you  waste  your  time  in 
the  Law  School  and  are  a  man  of  a  generous 
ambition  and  good  capacity,  you  can  make  up 
for  it  in  a  great  degree  after  you  open  your 
office.  You  will  be  pretty  sure  to  have  some 
leisure  then.  But  if  you  neglect  the  founda- 
tions which  are  laid  in  these  four  college  years, 
they  will  never  be  laid,  or  certainly  will  never 
be  well  laid,  at  all. 

I  have  in  my  time  known  many  men  famous 
in  war,  in  statesmanship,  in  science,  in  the  pro- 
fessions, and  in  business.  If  I  were  asked  to 
declare  the  secret  of  their  success,  I  should  at- 
tribute it  in  general  not  to  any  superiority  of 
natural   genius,  but   to   the  use   they  made  in 


8  CONDITIONS    OF    SUCCESS 

youth,  after  the  ordinary  day's  work  was  over, 
of  the  hours  which  other  men  throw  away  or 
devote  to  idleness  or  rest  or  society.  There  are 
doubtless  many  dull  men,  there  are  doubtless 
men  of  a  rare  and  brilliant  genius.  But  the 
great  things  that  have  been  done  in  this  world 
have  not,  in  general,  been  done  by  men  of  rare 
genius  ;  and  dull  men  who  have  done  their  best 
have  contributed  very  largely  to  what  has  been 
done  for  mankind.  The  great  things  in  this 
world  have  been  done  by  men  of  ordinary  nat- 
ural capacity,  who  have  done  their  best.  They 
have  done  their  best  by  never  wasting  their 
time.  It  has  been  said  that  the  great  fortunes 
in  this  country  have  been  accumulated  not  by 
men  with  a  genius  for  money-making,  but  with 
a  genius  for  money-keeping;  that  it  is  not  the 
size  of  the  brook,  but  the  strength  and  tightness 
of  the  dam  which  makes  the  great  pond.  That 
is  as  true  of  the  result  of  a  life's  work  in  getting 
honor  or  power  or  fame  or  in  storing  mental 
capacity  or  doing  public  service  as  it  is  in  mak- 
ing money.  If  half  the  hours  of  your  day  run 
to  waste,  there   will  be  but  half  as  much  to 


IN    PUBLIC   LIFE.  9 

show  for  your  life  when  it  is  over.  I  cannot 
overstate  this  matter.  "It  is  what  we  sow," 
says  the  great  preacher  of  the  English  Church, 
Jeremy  Taylor,  "  it  is  what  we  sow  in  the 
minutes  and  spare  portions  of  a  few  years  that 
grows  up  to  crowns  and  sceptres." 

I  suppose  nearly  every  one  of  you  would 
like,  if  he  can,  to  become  a  good  public 
speaker.  That  power  is  essential  to  success 
at  the  Bar  or  in  the  pulpit,  and  almost  indis- 
pensable to  success  in  public  life.  Wherever  a 
man  wishes  to  get  influence  over  his  fellow- 
men  in  a  republic  in  honorable  ways,  he  needs 
this  faculty.  The  rare  men  who  have  suc- 
ceeded without  it  are  the  men  who  value  it 
most.  The  longer  I  live  the  more  highly  I 
have  come  to  value  the  gift  of  eloquence.  In- 
deed, I  am  not  sure  that  it  is  not  the  single  gift, 
not  of  the  essentials  of  moral  character,  most 
to  be  coveted  by  man.  The  eye  and  the  voice 
are  the  only  and  natural  avenues  by  which  one 
human  soul  can  enter  into  and  subdue  another. 
When  every  other  faculty  of  the  orator  is  ac- 
quired, it  sometimes   almost  seems  as  if   voice 


10  CONDITIONS    OF    SUCCESS 

were  nine-tenths  and  everything  else  but  one- 
tenth  of  the  consummate  orator.  There  are 
exceptions,  of  which  Charles  James  Fox,  the 
most  famous  debater  that  ever  lived,  is  the 
most  famous.  But  it  is  impossible  to  overrate 
the  importance  to  the  orator's  purpose  of  that 
matchless  instrument,  the  human  voice. 

I  have  never  supposed  myself  to  possess  this 
gift.  The  instruction  which  we  had  in  my 
youth,  especially  that  at  Harvard,  either  in 
composition  or  elocution  was,  I  think,  not  only 
no  advantage  but  a  positive  injury.  So  a  boy 
who  had  an  awkward  manner  and  a  harsh  voice 
was  apt  to  leave  college  worse  off  than  he 
entered  it.  But  I  have  had  a  good  opportunity 
to  hear  the  best  public  speaking  of  my  time 
for  the  last  fifty  years.  So  perhaps  my  experi- 
ence and  observation,  too  late  for  my  own  ad- 
vantage, may  be  worth  something  to  you. 

In  managing  the  voice,  the  best  tone  and 
manner  for  public  speaking  is  commonly  that 
which  the  speaker  falls  into  naturally  when  he 
is  engaged  in  earnest  conversation.  Suppose 
you   are   sitting  about  a   table   with  a   dozen 


IN    PUBLIC    LIFE.  11 

friends,  and  some  subject  is  started  in  which 
you  are  deeply  interested.  You  engage  in  an 
earnest  and  serious  dialogue  with  one  of  them 
at  the  other  end  of  the  table.  You  are  perfectly 
at  ease.  You  forget  yourself,  you  do  not  care 
in  the  least  for  your  manner  or  tone  of  voice, 
but  only  ^for  your  thought.  The  tone  you 
adopt  then  will  ordinarily  be  the  best  tone  for 
you  in  public  speaking.  You  can,  however, 
learn  from  teachers  or  friendly  critics  to  avoid 
any  harsh  or  disagreeable  fashion  of  speech 
that  you  may  have  fallen  into  and  that  may  be 
habitual  to  you  in  private  conversation. 

Next,  never  strain  your  vocal  organs  by  at- 
tempting to  fill  spaces  which  are  too  large  for 
you.  Speak  as  loudly  and  distinctly  as  you 
can  do  easily,  and  let  more  distant  portions  of 
your  audience  go.  You  will  find  in  that  way 
very  soon  that  your  voice  will  increase  in  com- 
pass and  power,  and  you  will  do  better  than  by 
a  habit  of  straining  the  voice  beyond  its  natural 
capacity.  Be  careful  to  avoid  falsetto.  Shun 
imitating  the  tricks  of  speech  of  other  orators, 
even  of  famous  and  successful  orators.     These 


12  CONDITIONS    OF  SUCCESS 

may  do  for  them,  but  not  for  you.  You  will 
do  no  better  in  attempting  to  imitate  the  tricks 
of  speech  of  other  men  in  public  speaking  than 
in  private  speaking. 

Never  make  a  gesture  for  the  sake  of  making 
one.  I  believe  that  most  of  the  successful 
speakers  whom  I  know  would  find  it  hard  to 
tell  you  whether  they  themselves  make  gestures 
or  not,  they  are  so  absolutely  unconscious  in  the 
matter.  But  with  gestures  as  with  the  voice, 
get  teachers  or  friendly  critics  to  point  out  to 
you  any  bad  habit  you  may  fall  into.  I  think 
it  would  be  well  if  our  young  public  speakers, 
especially  preachers,  would  have  competent  in- 
structors and  critics  among  their  auditors  after 
they  enter  their  profession  to  give  them  the 
benefit  of  such  observation  and  counsel  as  may 
be  suggested  in  that  way.  If  a  Harvard  pro- 
fessor of  elocution  would  retain  the  responsibil- 
ity for  his  pupils  five  or  ten  years  after  they  get 
into  active  life,  he  would  do  a  good  deal  more 
good  than  by  his  instruction  to  undergraduates. 

So  far  I  have  been  talking  about  mere  man- 
ner.    The  matter  and  substance  of  the   orator's 


IN    PUBLIC    LIFE.  13 

speech  must  depend  upon  the  moral  and  intel- 
lectual quality  of  the  man.  The  great  orator 
must  be  a  man  of  absolute  sincerity.  Never  ad- 
vocate a  cause  in  which  you  do  not  believe,  or 
affect  an  emotion  you  do  not  feel.  No  skill  or 
acting  will  cover  up  the  want  of  earnestness. 
It  is  like  the  ointment  of  the  hand  which  be- 
wrayeth  itself. 

In  my  opinion,  the  two  most  important  things 
that  a  young  man  can  do  to  make  himself  a 
good  public  speaker  are  : 

First.  Constant  and  careful  written  transla- 
tions from  Latin  or  Greek  into  English. 

Second.     Practice  in  a  good  debating  society. 

It  has  been  said  that  all  the  great  parliament- 
ary orators  of  England  are  either  men  whom 
Lord  North  saw,  or  men  who  saw  Lord  North ; 
that  is,  men  who  were  conspicuous  as  public 
speakers  in  Lord  North's  youth,  his  contempo- 
raries, and  the  men  who  saw  him  as  an  old  man 
when  they  were  young  themselves.  This  would 
include  Bolingbroke  and  would  come  down  only 
to  the  year  of  Lord  John  Russell's  birth.  So 
we  should  have  to  add  a  few  names,  especially 


14  CONDITIONS    OF    SUCCESS 

Gladstone,  Disraeli,  John  Bright,  and  Palmer- 
ston.  There  is  no  great  Parliamentary  orator 
in  England  since  Gladstone  died.  A  good 
many  years  ago  I  looked  at  the  biographies  of 
the  men  who  belonged  to  that  period  who  were 
famous  as  great  orators  in  the  Parliament  or  in 
court,  to  find,  if  I  could,  the  secret  of  their 
power.  With  the  exception  of  Lord  Erskine 
and  of  John  Bright,  I  believe  every  one  of  them 
trained  himself  by  careful  and  constant  transla- 
tion from  Latin  or  Greek,  and  frequented  a 
good  debating  society  in  his  youth. 

Brougham  trained  himself  for  extemporane- 
ous speaking  in  the  Speculative  Society,  the 
great  theatre  of  debate  for  the  University  of 
Edinburgh.  He  also  improved  his  English 
style  by  translations  from  Greek,  among  which 
is  his  well-known  version  of  the  Oration  on  the 
Crown. 

Canning's  attention  while  at  Eton  was 
strongly  turned  to  extemporaneous  speaking. 
They  had  a  debating  society  in  which  the  Mar- 
quis of  Wellesley  and  Charles  Earl  Grey  had 
been  trained  before  him,  in  which  they  had  all 


IN    PUBLIC    LIFE.  15 

the  forms  of  the  House  of  Commons, —  Speaker, 
Treasury  Benches,  and  an  Opposition.  Canning 
also  was  disciplined  by  the  habit  of  translation. 
Curran  practised  declamation  daily  before  a 
glass,  reciting  passages  from  Shakespeare  and 
the  best  English  orators.  He  frequented  the 
debating  societies  which  then  abounded  in 
London.  He  failed  at  first,  and  was  ridiculed 
as  "  Orator  Mum."  But  at  last  he  surmounted 
every  difficulty.  It  was  said  of  him  by  a  con- 
temporary :  "  He  turned  his  shrill  and  stumbling 
brogue  into  a  flexible,  sustained,  and  finely 
modulated  voice  ;  his  action  became  free  and 
forcible ;  he  acquired  perfect  readiness  in  think- 
ing on  his  legs ;  he  put  down  every  opponent  by 
the  mingled  force  of  his  argument  and  wit,  and 
was  at  last  crowned  with  the  universal  applause 
of  the  society,  and  invited  by  the  President  to 
an  entertainment  in  their  behalf."  I  am  not 
sure  that  I  have  seen,  on  any  good  authority, 
that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  writing  translations 
from  Latin  or  Greek.  But  he  studied  them 
with  great  ardor,  and  undoubtedly  adopted, 
among  the  methods  of   perfecting  his    English 


16  CONDITIONS    OF    SUCCESS 

style,  the  custom  of  students  of  his  day  of 
translation  from  these  languages. 

Jeffrey  joined  the  Speculative  Society  in 
Edinburgh  in  his  youth.  His  biographer  says 
that  it  did  more  for  him  than  any  other  event 
in  the  whole  course  of  his  education. 

Chatham,  the  greatest  of  English  orators,  if 
we  may  judge  by  the  reports  of  his  contem- 
poraries, trained  himself  for  public  speaking  by 
constant  translations  from  Latin  and  Greek. 
The  education  of  his  son,  the  younger  Pitt,  is 
well  known.  His  father  compelled  him  to  read 
Thucydides  into  English  at  sight,  and  to  go 
over  it  again  and  again  until  he  had  got  the  best 
possible  rendering   of  the  Greek  into  English. 

Macaulay  belonged  to  the  Cambridge  Union, 
where,  as  in  the  society  of  the  same  name  at 
Oxford,  the  great  topics  of  the  day  were  dis- 
cussed by  men,  many  of  whom  afterward  be- 
came famous  statesmen  and  debaters  in  the 
Commons. 

Young  Murray,  afterward  Lord  Mansfield, 
translated  Sallust  and  Horace  with  ease ; 
learned  great  part  of  them  by  heart ;  could  con- 


IN    PUBLIC    LIFE.  17 

verse  fluently  in  Latin ;  write  Latin  prose 
correctly  and  idiomatically,  and  was  specially 
distinguished  at  Westminster  for  his  declama- 
tions. He  translated  every  oration  of  Cicero 
into  English  and  back  again  into  Latin. 

Fox  can  hardly  have  been  supposed  to  have 
practised  much  in  debating  societies,  as  he 
entered  the  House  of  Commons  when  he  was 
nineteen  years  old.  But  it  is  quite  probable 
that  he  was  drilled  by  translations  from  Latin 
and  Greek  into  English ;  and  in  the  House  of 
Commons  he  had  in  early  youth  the  advantage 
of  the  best  debating  society  in  the  world.  It  is 
said  that  he  read  Latin  and  Greek  as  easily  as 
he  read  English.  He  himself  said  that  he 
gained  his  skill  at  the  expense  of  the  House,  for 
he  had  sometimes  tasked  himself  during  the 
entire  session  to  speak  on  every  question  that 
came  up,  whether  he  was  interested  in  it  or  not, 
as  a  means  of  exercising  and  training  his 
faculties.  This  is  what  made  him,  according  to 
Burke,  "  rise  by  slow  degrees  to  be  the  most 
brilliant  and  accomplished  debater  the  world 
ever  saw." 


18  CONDITIONS    OF    SUCCESS 

Sir  Henry  Bulwer's  Life  of  Palmerston  does 
not  tell  us  whether  he  was  trained  by  the  habit 
of  writing  translations  or  in  debating  societies. 
But  he  was  a  very  eager  reader  of  the  classics. 
There  is  little  doubt,  however,  considering  the 
habit  of  his  contemporaries  at  Cambridge,  and 
that  he  was  ambitious  for  public  life  and 
represented  the  University  of  Cambridge  in 
Parliament  just  after  he  became  twenty-one, 
that  he  belonged  to  a  debating  society,  and 
that  he  was  drilled  in  English  composition 
by  translation  from  the  classics. 

Gladstone  was  a  famous  debater  in  the  Ox- 
ford Union,  as  is  well  known,  and  was  un- 
doubtedly in  the  habit  of  writing  translations 
from  Greek  and  Latin,  of  which  he  was  always 
so  passionately  fond.  He  says  in  his  paper  on 
Arthur  Hallam  that  the  Eton  Debating  Club, 
known  as  the  Society,  supplied  the  British 
Empire  with  four  Prime  Ministers  in  fourscore 
years. 

The  value  of  the  practice  of  translation  from 
Latin  or  Greek  into  English,  in  getting  com- 
mand of  good  English  style,  in  my  judgment, 


IN    PUBLIC    LIFE.  19 

can  hardly  be  stated  too  strongly.  The  expla- 
nation is  not  hard  to  find.  You  have  in  these 
two  languages,  and  especially  in  Latin,  the  best 
instrument  for  the  most  precise  and  most  per- 
fect expression  of  thought.  The  Latin  prose 
of  Tacitus  and  Cicero,  the  verse  of  Virgil  and 
Horace,  are  like  a  Greek  statue,  or  an  Italian 
cameo.  You  have  not  only  exquisite  beauty, 
but  also  exquisite  precision.  You  get  the 
thought  into  your  mind  with  the  accuracy  and 
precision  of  the  words  that  express  numbers 
in  the  multiplication  table.  Ten  times  one  are 
ten,  not  ten  and  one  one-millionth.  Having 
got  the  idea  into  your  mind  with  the  precision, 
accuracy,  and  beauty  of  the  Latin  expression, 
you  are  to  get  its  equivalent  in  English.  Sup- 
pose you  have  knowledge  of  no  language  but 
your  own.  The  thought  comes  to  you  in  the 
mysterious  way  in  which  thoughts  are  born, 
and  struggles  for  expression  in  apt  words.  If 
the  phrase  that  occurs  to  you  do  not  exactly 
fit  the  thought,  you  are  almost  certain,  espe- 
cially in  speaking  or  rapid  composition,  to 
modify    the    thought   to   fit  the    phrase.     Your 


20  CONDITIONS    OF    SUCCESS 

sentence  commands  you,  not  you  the  sentence. 
The  extempore  speaker  never  gets,  or  easily 
loses,  the  power  of  precise  and  accurate  think- 
ing or  statement,  and  rarely  attains  a  literary 
excellence  which  gives  him  immortality.  But 
the  conscientious  translator  has  no  such  refuge. 
He  is  confronted  by  the  inexorable  original. 
He  cannot  evade  or  shirk.  He  must  try  and 
try  and  try  again  until  he  has  got  the  exact 
thought  expressed  in  the  English  equivalent. 
This  is  not  enough.  He  must  get  an  English 
expression,  if  the  resources  of  the  language  will 
furnish  it,  which  will  equal  as  near  as  may  be 
the  dignity  and  beauty  of  the  original.  He 
must  not  give  you  pewter  for  silver,  or  pinch- 
beck for  gold,  or  mica  for  diamond.  This  prac- 
tice will  soon  give  him  ready  command  of  the 
great  riches  of  his  own  noble  English  tongue. 
It  will  give  a  habitual  nobility  and  beauty  to 
his  own  style.  The  best  word  and  phrase  will 
come  to  him  spontaneously  when  he  speaks  and 
thinks.  The  processes  of  thought  itself  will 
grow  easier.  The  orator  will  get  the  affluence 
and   abundance   which    characterize   the   great 


IN    PUBLIC    LIFE.  21 

Italian  artists  of  the  Middle  Ages,  who  aston- 
ish us  as  much  by  the  amount  and  variety  of 
their  work  as  by  its  excellence. 

The  value  of  translation  is  very  different  from 
that  of  original  written  composition.  Cicero 
says : 

"  Stilus  optimus  et  prostatitis simus  dicendi  ef- 
fector ac  magister" 

Of  this  I  am  by  no  means  sure.  If  you  write 
rapidly  you  get  the  habit  of  careless  composi- 
tion. If  you  write  slowly  you  get  the  habit  of 
slow  composition.  Each  of  these  is  an  injury 
to  the  style  of  the  speaker.  He  cannot  stop  to 
correct  or  scratch  out.  Cicero  himself  in  a 
later  passage  states  his  preference  for  transla- 
tion. He  says  that  at  first  he  used  to  take  a 
Latin  author,  Ennius  or  Gracchus,  and  get  the 
meaning  into  his  head,  and  then  write  it  again. 
But  he  soon  found  that  in  that  way  if  he  used 
again  the  very  words  of  his  author  he  got  no 
advantage,  and  if  he  used  other  language  of 
his  own,  the  author  had  already  occupied  the 
ground  with  the  best  expression,  and  he  was 
left  with  the  second  best.     So  he  gave  up  the 


ZZ  CONDITIONS    OF    SUCCESS 

practice  and  adopted  instead  that  of  translating 
from  Greek. 

It  is  often  said  that  if  a  speech  read  well  it  is 
not  a  good  speech.  There  may  be  some  truth 
in  it.  The  reader  cannot,  of  course,  get  the  im- 
pression which  the  speaker  conveys  by  look, 
and  tone,  and  gesture.  He  lacks  that  marvel- 
lous influence  by  which,  in  a  great  assembly, 
the  emotion  of  every  individual  soul  is  multi- 
plied by  the  emotion  of  every  other.  The 
reader  can  pause  and  dwell  upon  the  thought. 
If  there  be  a  fallacy,  he  is  not  hurried  away  to 
something  else  before  he  can  detect  it.  So, 
also,  his  more  careful  and  deliberate  criticism 
will  discover  offences  of  style  and  taste  which 
pass  unheeded  in  a  speech  when  uttered.  But 
still  the  great  oratorio  triumphs  of  literature 
and  history  stand  the  test  of  reading  in  the 
closet,  as  well  as  of  hearing  in  the  assembly. 
Would  not  Mark  Antony's  speech  over  the  dead 
body  of  Ca3sar,  had  it  been  uttered,  have  moved 
the  Roman  populace  as  it  moves  the  spectator 
when  the  play  is  acted,  or  the  solitary  reader  in 
his  closet?      Does  not  Lord  Chatham's  "I  re- 


IN    PUBLIC    LIFE.  23 

joice  that  America  has  resisted"  read  well? 
Do  not  Sheridan's  great  peroration  in  the  Im- 
peachment of  Warren  Hastings  and  Burke's 
read  well  ?  Does  not  "  Liberty  and  Union,  Now 
and  Forever"  read  well?  Does  not  "  Give  me 
Liberty  or  Give  me  Death  "  read  well  ?  Does 
not  Fisher  Ames'  speech  for  the  treaty  read 
well?  Do  not  Everett's  finest  passages  read 
well? 

There  are  a  few  examples  of  men  of  great 
original  genius  who  have  risen  to  lofty  oratory  on 
some  great  occasion  who  had  not  the  advantage 
of  familiarity  with  any  great  authors.  But 
they  are  not  only  few  in  number,  but  the  oc- 
casions are  few  when  they  have  risen  to  a  great 
height.  In  general,  the  orator,  whether  at  the 
Bar  or  in  the  pulpit  or  in  public  life,  who  is  to 
meet  adequately  the  many  demands  upon  his 
resources,  must  get  familiar  with  the  images 
and  illustrations  he  wants,  and  the  resources  of 
a  fitting  diction,  by  soaking  his  mind  in  some 
great  author's  who  will  alike  satisfy  and  stim- 
ulate his  imagination,  and  supply  him  with  a 
lofty  expression.     Of  these,  I  suppose  the  best 


24  CONDITIONS    OF    SUCCESS 

are,  by  common  consent,  the  Bible,  Shakespeare, 
and  Milton.  To  these  I  should  myself  by  all 
means  add  Wordsworth.  It  is  a  maxim  that 
the  pupil  who  wishes  to  acquire  a  pure  and  sim- 
ple style  should  give  his  days  and  nights  to 
Addison.  But  there  is  a  lack  of  strength  and 
vigor  in  Addison,  which  perhaps  prevents  his 
being  the  best  model  for  the  advocate  in  the 
court-house  or  the  champion  in  a  political  de- 
bate. I  should  rather,  for  myself,  recommend 
Robert  South  to  the  student.  If  the  speaker, 
whose  thought  has  weight  and  vigor  in  it,  can 
say  it  as  South  would  have  said  it,  he  may  be 
quite  sure  that  his  weighty  meaning  will  be  ex- 
pressed alike  to  the  mind  of  the  people  and  the 
apprehension  of  his  antagonist. 

Perhaps  I  may,  without  presumption  or  with- 
out breaking  the  rule  about  preaching  which  I 
laid  down  in  the  beginning,  give  to  you,  my 
younger  brothers,  children  of  the  same  dear 
mother,  a  few  suggestions  which  may  help  you, 
if  you  are  inclined  that  way,  to  be  successful 
and  useful  men  in  the  public  life  of  your  coun- 
try.    I  do  not  think  that,  in  general,  the  men 


IN    PUBLIC    LIFE.  25 

who  have  been  our  great  political  leaders  have 
proposed  to  themselves  politics  as  a  vocation  in 
life  in  the  beginning.  The  men  who  propose 
that  to  themselves  in  the  beginning  are  apt  to 
fail.  The  people,  in  general,  like  to  take  for 
their  service  men  whose  quality  has  been  tested 
in  some  private  calling.  The  too  eager  candi- 
date is  apt  to  fail. 

Do  not  trouble  yourself  much  to  court  the 
favor  of  the  people.  He  that  will  serve  men 
must  not  promise  himself  that  he  shall  not  anger 
them ;  and  while  the  people  wish  to  have  their 
opinion  respected  and  will  not  easily  forgive 
contempt  for  it,  in  the  end  they  like  indepen- 
dence much  better  than  obsequiousness.  I 
will  not  undertake  to  speak  for  other  parts  of 
the  country.  But  the  one  thing  that  the  people 
of  Massachusetts  will  not  forgive  in  a  public 
servant  is  that  he  should  act  against  his  own 
honest  judgment  to  please  them. 

Have  no  secrets  from  the  people.  Make  your 
opinion  known  if  any  man  be  curious  to  know 
it.  Let  what  is  in  your  heart  and  nothing  else 
be  uttered  by  your  lips. 


26  CONDITIONS    OF    SUCCESS 

Do  not,  as  some  of  our  excellent  men  do  so 
often,  make  your  appearance  in  public  only  on 
occasions  when  you  wish  to  repress  or  resist  pop- 
ular feeling,  but  take  care  to  make  known  what 
you  think  equally  when  you  sympathize  with  it. 
If  the  people  get  to  think  of  you  as  a  man  who 
knows  how  to  do  nothing  but  scold  and  criticise 
and  find  fault,  they  will  soon  get  sick  of  you. 
They  will  receive,  whether  convinced  or  not, 
with  great  respect,  advice  and  remonstrance,  and 
if  need  be,  steadfast  opposition,  from  the  man 
whom  they  know  to  desire  only  their  welfare, 
and  who  they  know  sympathizes  with  them, 
respects  them,  loves  them,  and  is  in  general 
sympathy  and  accord  with  their  best  aspirations. 
Our  illustrious  brother,  Charles  Sumner,  en- 
countered and  resisted  great  waves  of  public 
sentiment  on  several  important  occasions.  But 
the  people  of  Massachusetts  never  abated  one 
jot  or  tittle  in  their  respect  for  him,  and  he  was 
at  no  time  in  his  life  more  powerful  than  in  his 
closing  days,  as  would  have  been  seen  if  he  had 
lived  two  years  longer. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  instances  of  the 


IN    PUBLIC    LIFE.  27 

truth  of  what  I  am  saying  was  the  late  Lucius 
Q.  C.  Lamar,  of  Mississippi,  a  man  with  whose 
friendship  I  am  proud  to  have  been  honored.  He 
voted  against  the  free  coinage  of  silver  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  the  people  of  his  State  earnestly  fa- 
vored it,  and  against  the  express  instructions  of 
its  legislature.  In  1874,  at  a  time  when  the 
passions  of  the  Civil  War  seemed  to  blaze 
higher,  and  the  angry  conflict  between  the  sec- 
tions seemed  to  blaze  higher  even  than  during 
the  war  itself,  he  astonished  and  shocked  the 
people  of  the  South  by  pronouncing  a  tender 
and  affectionate  eulogy  on  Charles  Sumner. 
He  testified  to  Sumner's  high  moral  qualities, 
to  his  intense  love  of  liberty,  to  his  magna- 
nimity, and  to  his  incapacity  for  a  personal  ani- 
mosity, and  regretted  that  he  had  restrained  the 
impulse  which  had  been  strong  on  him  to  go  to 
Mr.  Sumner  and  offer  him  his  hand  and  his  heart 
with  it.  It  would  have  been  almost  impossible 
for  any  other  man  who  had  done  either  of  these 
things  to  go  back  to  Mississippi  and  live.  But 
it  never  shook  for  a  moment  the  love  for  Lamar 
of  a  oeoDle  who  knew  so  well  his  love  for  them. 


28  CONDITIONS    OF    SUCCESS 

Believe  in  the  strength  of  righteousness. 
Believe  in  the  strength  of  righteousness  as  a 
powerful  and  prevailing  political  force.  Dis- 
trust the  shallow  philosophy  that  would  ever 
attribute  base  motives  to  the  great  actions  of 
human  history,  or  teach  that  its  mighty  currents 
are  determined  by  greed,  selfishness,  avarice, 
ambition,  or  revenge.  The  pure  and  lofty  emo- 
tions are  ever  the  great  and  overmastering  emo- 
tions. Learn  also  to  judge  of  men  in  public,  as 
in  private,  of  parties,  and,  above  all,  of  your 
country,  by  their  merits,  and  not  by  their  de- 
fects. Washington  Allston  was  asked  at  a 
dinner  party  here  in  Cambridge  if  he  had  seen 
a  new  painting  by  a  living  artist.  He  said  he 
had,  and  the  inquirer  said,  "  What  are  its  prin- 
cipal defects  ?  "  "  Artists,"  replied  Allston, 
"judge  of  pictures  by  their  merits." 

Have  you  ever  thought  of  it  that  if  you  could 
trust  abundant  contemporary  authority,  the 
eight  principal  political  villains  of  our  history 
have  been  the  eight  greatest  Presidents  of  the 
United  States  ?  Six  of  them  have  been  elected 
twice.     Washington,   John   Adams,   Jefferson, 


IN    PUBLIC    LIFE.  29 

John  Quincy  Adams,  Jackson,  Lincoln,  Grant, 
—  these  are  seven  of  them.  I  will  not  name 
the  eighth.  If  I  did,  part  of  my  audience,  I 
dare  say,  would  agree  as  to  the  greatness,  and 
the  other  part  as  to  the  villainy. 

These  wailing  and  despairing  friends  of  ours 
make  two  mistakes  when  they  deal  with  public 
affairs  and  public  men.  They  do  not  commonly 
make  them  in  judging  of  their  neighbors  in  pri- 
vate, or  in  dealing  with  the  affairs  of  common 
life.  We  have,  God  be  thanked,  pretty  much 
got  over  them  in  theological  discussion.  They 
think  that  every  honest  man  must  of  course  see 
things  exactly  as  they  do.  Therefore  the  man 
who  says  he  does  not  see  things  as  they  do  must 
of  course  be  dishonest.  They  think  every  other 
man  must  draw  the  same  conclusion  from  ad- 
mitted premises  that  they  do.  Therefore  they 
hold  you  to  inferences  from  your  doctrines 
which  they  draw  for  you,  and  which  you  do  not 
admit.  This  attitude  of  mind  seems  ridiculous 
enough  when  you  state  it.  But  it  has  had 
terrible  results  in  history.  Out  of  it  has  grown 
all  bigotry,  all  tyranny,  all  persecution,  all  op- 


30  CONDITIONS    OF    SUCCESS 

pression,  as  Macaulay  has  well  shown  in  one  of 
his  most  admirable  essays,  —  that  on  the  civil 
disabilities  of  the  Jews.  He  well  says,  "  To 
charge  men  with  practical  consequences  which 
they  themselves  deny  is  dangerous  in  contro- 
versy, and  it  is  atrocious  in  government." 

Distrust  these  political  critics  who  tell  you 
the  Republic  is  going  to  decay,  because  in  a 
country  where  every  man  has  his  share  in  the 
government,  the  faults  of  humanity  as  well  as 
its  virtues  make  themselves  felt.  The  temper 
which  inspires  this  doleful  criticism  comes  gen- 
erally of  the  personal  failures  and  disappoint- 
ments of  the  critic  himself.  He  is  like  Mr. 
Emerson's  young  lady  who  thought  Nature  had 
sprained  her  ankle  when  she  sprained  her  own. 
I  have  been  through,  in  my  time,  a  good  many 
periods  when  everything  that  was  base  and 
degrading  seemed  to  have  come  to  the  surface, 
only  to  see  them  followed  by  a  new  manifesta- 
tion of  the  greatness  and  the  glory  of  the  Re- 
public and  of  the  people's  unconquerable  love 
for  freedom  and  righteousness. 

In  1854,  when  the  whole  South  was   domi- 


IN    PUBLIC    LIFE.  31 

nated  by  slavery  and  the  whole  North  by 
Know-Nothingism,  when  it  seemed  that  every- 
thing that  was  cheap  and  vile  and  hateful  had 
come  to  the  surface  in  this  country,  Rufus 
Choate  wrote  to  a  friend  abroad  :  "  Your  estate 
is  gracious  that  it  keeps  you  out  of  our  politics. 
Anything  more  low,  obscene,  feculent,  the  man- 
ifold oceanic  heavings  of  history  have  not  cast 
up.  We  shall  come  to  the  worship  of  onions, 
cats,  and  things  vermiculate."  This  was  within 
six  years  of  the  heroic  days  of  1861. 

President  Eliot  said  something  in  my  hearing 
last  commencement  that  impressed  me  exceed- 
ingly, when  he  conferred  the  degree  of  Doctor 
of  Laws  upon  the  Dean.  He  spoke  of  him  as 
"  The  well  beloved  Dean  of  Harvard  College, 
because  convinced  of  the  overwhelming  pre- 
dominance of  good  in  the  student  world."  If 
that  conviction  be  true,  —  and  it  is  true,  —  it  is 
because  the  student  of  Harvard  is  but  typical  of 
his  countrymen,  and  the  Dean,  if  he  carry  his 
conviction  with  him,  would  make  a  successful 
political  leader. 

What  T  have  to  say  will  seem  commonplace 


32  CONDITIONS    OF    SUCCESS 

enough.  But  I  wish  I  could  impress  upon 
every  young  American  that  the  great  text 
which  declares  that  Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity 
are  the  three  things  that  are  forever  to  abide 
conveys  the  best  counsel  to  the  youth  of  our 
country  and  tells  them  what  quality  they 
should  bring  to  the  service  of  the  State.  The 
bane,  the  danger,  the  pollution  of  our  public 
life  is  not  party  spirit,  not  corruption,  not  the 
reckless  desire  for  empire,  not  selfishness  or  thei 
disregard  of  justice  in  the  conduct  of  affairs. 
These  are  the  old  foes.  We  know  them.  Our 
fathers  knew  them.  We  have  vanquished  them 
again  and  again.  But  want  of  faith  in  God  and 
man,  hopelessness  and  despair,  hatred  and  un- 
charitableness,  —  it  is  in  these  disguises  that 
Satan  presents  himself  to  the  educated  youth 
of  our  time,  —  it  is  these  which  take  from  the 
forces  of  the  Republic  men  who  ought  to  do 
her  the  noblest  service,  —  it  is  these  which  have 
so  often  baffled  the  best  desire  of  the  patriot 
and  the  best  work  of  the  statesman. 

Mr.   Emerson  told.  Doctor  Ripley,  when  he 
pressed   upon    him   the    old    doctrines    of  the 


IN    PUBLIC    LIFE.  33 

church,  "  If  I  am  the  devil's  child,  I  will  live  to 
the  devil."  My  pessimist  friend,  if  this  people 
are  the  devil's  children,  we  shall  live  to  the 
devil  and  neither  you  nor  we  can  help  it.  But 
we  do  not  believe  it  and  we  will  not  accept  the 
fact  as  established  by  your  authority. 

If  you  take  part  in  public  affairs  your  politi- 
cal duties  will  be  created  for  you  and  not  by 
you.  They  will  grow  out  of  the  immediate 
occasion.  In  general,  there  will  be  opportunity 
enough  for  the  best  ability  in  the  peaceful  con- 
duct of  affairs  in  peaceful  times.  Of  course 
you  will  always  be  bound  to  keep  sweet  and 
clean  the  spot  you  occupy.  But  the  course  of 
events  growing  out  of  circumstances  you  will 
have  had  no  hand  in  creating  will  overtake 
you  and  demand  of  you  to  play  a  man's  part. 
It  will  be  fortunate  for  your  country  if  the  cur- 
rent of  public  affairs  be  placid  and  smooth.  It 
will  be  more  fortunate  for  you  if  you  have  the 
part  of  a  leader,  if  you  are  fit  for  it,  in  stormy 
and  perilous  years.  Set  yourself  strenuously 
against  all  evil.  But  do  not  go  out  of  your  way 
to  create  issues  or  discover  abuses  merely  that 


34  CONDITIONS    OF    SUCCESS 

you  may  gain  notoriety  by  curing  them.  There 
is  no  more  ridiculous  and  helpless  object  than  a 
reformer  in  search  of  a  grievance,  unless  it  be 
a  party  in  search  of  a  principle.  Madame 
Roland  said,  "  O  Liberty !  What  crimes  are 
committed  in  thy  name  !  "  If  she  had  lived  in 
our  day,  she  would  have  said,  "  O  Reform  ! 
What  foolishness  is  uttered  in  thy  clubs ! " 
But  still  account  yourself  happy  if  it  be  your 
lot  to  espouse  some  noble  and  unpopular  cause 
in  the  beginning,  to  stand  by  its  cradle,  to 
throw  yourself  on  its  broad  altar,  to  see  it 
grow,  to  help  it  grow,  to  see  it  first  arouse  curi- 
osity, then  attention,  then  contempt,  then 
hatred,  then  fear,  then  respect,  always  growing 
and  growing  until  at  last  over  prejudice  and 
hate  and  party  and  old  customs  and  vested  in- 
terests, the  irresistible  current  makes  its  way. 

There  are  still  some  old  men  alive  who  re- 
member the  meeting  on  Worcester  Common, 
June  28, 1848,  to  save  from  slavery  the  vast  ter- 
ritory between  the  Mississippi  and  the  Pacific. 
It  uttered  its  brave  challenge  to  both  great 
parties ;  to  church  and  State ;  to  manufacture 


IN    PUBLIC    LIFE.  35 

and  trade1;  to  court  and  pulpit;  to  Congress 
and  Legislature,  with  nothing  on  its  side  but 
liberty. 

'*  Bliss  was  it  in  that  dawn  to  be  alive, 
But  to  be  young  was  heaven." 

Never  make  the  mistake  of  thinking  that 
you  can  gain  the  favor  of  the  people  by  depart- 
ing from  the  dignity  of  behavior  that  belongs 
to  you  as  educated  men.  You  will  often  wit- 
ness and  perhaps  often  be  tempted  to  envy  the 
applause  which  many  public  speakers  get  by 
buffoonery,  by  vulgar  wit,  by  coarse  personal- 
ity, by  appeal  to  vulgar  passions.  You  will 
think  that  your  grave  and  serious  reasonings 
are  lost  on  the  audiences  that  receive  them, 
half  asleep,  as  if  listening  to  a  tedious  sermon, 
and  who  come  to  life  again  when  the  stump 
speaker  takes  the  platform.  You  will  make  a 
great  mistake  if  you  suppose  the  American 
people  do  not  estimate  such  things  at  their 
true  value.  When  they  come  to  take  serious 
action,  they  prefer  to  get  their  inspiration  from 
the  church   or   the   college  and   not   from    the 


36  CONDITIONS    OF    SUCCESS 

circus.  Uncle  Sam  likes  to  be  amused.  But 
Uncle  Sam  is  a  gentleman.  I  remember  in  the 
spring  session  of  1869,  when  I  first  took  my 
seat  in  Congress,  there  was  a  member  of  the 
House  perhaps  as  widely  known  to  the  country 
as  any  man  in  it  except  President  Grant,  who 
used  to  get  up  some  scene  of  quarrel  or  buffoon- 
ery every  morning  session.  His  name  was 
found  every  clay  in  the  head-lines  of  the  news- 
papers. I  said  to  General  Banks  one  day  after 
the  adjournment,  "  Don't  you  think  it  is  quite 
likely  that  he  will  be  the  next  President  of 
the  United  States  ? "  "  Never,"  said  General 
Banks,  in  his  somewhat  grandiloquent  fashion. 
"  Why,"  said  I,  "don't  you  see  that  the  papers 
all  over  the  country  are  full  of  him  every 
morning?  People  seem  to  be  reading  about 
nobody  else.  Wherever  he  goes  the  crowds 
throng  after  him.  Nobody  else  gets  such 
applause,  not  even  Grant  himself." 

"Mr.  Hoar,"  replied  General  Banks,  "when 
I  came  down  to  the  House  this  morning,  there 
was  a  fight  between  two  monkeys  on  Pennsyl- 
vania avenue.     There  was  an  enormous  crowd, 


IN    PUBLIC    LIFE.  37 

shouting  and  laughing  and  cheering.  They 
would  have  paid  very  little  attention  to  you 
or  me.  But  when  they  come  to  elect  a  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  they  won't  take 
either  monkey." 

I  could  prolong  this  talk  indefinitely.  But 
I  ought  not  to  speak  any  longer.  I  have 
spoken  to  you  as  to  men  who  ought  to  aspire 
to  the  high  places  of  the  Republic.  I  would 
not  come  to  my  Alma  Mater  in  any  boastful 
or  braggart  spirit.  But  surely  the  son  of 
Harvard,  when  he  thinks  of  her  and  of  what  she 
has  made  him,  may  indulge  something  of  the 
temper  which  Macaulay  ascribes  to  the  younger 
Pitt,  u  who  thought  himself  worthy  of  great 
things,  being  in  truth  worthy."  You  come  of 
a  great  spiritual  lineage.  You  belong  to  an 
illustrious  brotherhood.  If  anywhere  on  earth 
it  be  true,  it  is  true  here,  —  if  of  any  men  on 
earth  it  be  true,  it  is  true  of  us  that 

l*  In  our  halls  is  hung 
Armory  of  the  invincible  knights  of  old, 

In  everything  we  are  sprung 
Of  earth's  first  blood,  have  titles  manifold." 


38  CONDITIONS    OF   SUCCESS 

It  is  a  great  chapter  in  history  that  has  been 
wrought  out  on  this  spot.  A  power  has  gone 
out  from  these  walls  to  purify  and  to  bless  and 
to  ennoble  mankind.  Its  influence  is  not  con- 
fined to  the  children  of  the  college.  It  is  not 
confined  to  the  Commonwealth  or  to  the  coun- 
try.    Tennyson  said  of  England  that 

"Her  freedom  slowly  broadens  down 
From  precedent  to  precedent." 

If  that  be  true,  —  and  it  is  true,  —  not  a  few  of 
the  precedents  that  have  broadened  English  free- 
dom are  precedents  taught  to  England  by 
America,  taught  to  America  by  Massachusetts, 
and  taught  to  Massachusetts  by  Harvard.  The 
accomplished  State  historian  of  New  York,  Mr. 
Hugh  Hastings,  says  in  his  preface  to  the 
papers  of  George  Clinton,  "  Massachusetts  was 
superior  to  her  sister  colonies,  since  through  her 
delegates,  with  their  learning  and  cultivation, 
she  led  the  procession  toward  the  separation  of 
the  mother  country  and  her  dependencies. 
This  spirit  of  supremacy  is  to  be  credited  to 
the  influence  of  Harvard  College,  which,  for  a 


IN    PUBLIC   LIFE.  39 

century  and  a  quarter,  had  been  disseminating 
seeds  not  of  antagonism  to  England,  but  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  instinct  of  independence  and 
liberty." 

Mr.  Hastings  is  right.  She  is  still  planting 
the  seed  not  of  antagonism  to  anybody,  but  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  instinct  of  independence  and 
liberty.  Her  influence  was  never  more  power- 
ful than  today.  It  will  be  still  more  powerful 
to-morrow.  There  are  some  things  I  think 
only.  But  this  thing  I  know:  There  is  noth- 
ing but  youth  in  the  blood  of  Harvard.  From 
her  great  power-house  the  electric  wires  are 
carrying  to-day  larger  influence  to  wider  fields. 
The  spirit  which  planted  the  little  college  in 
the  time  of  Henry  Dunster  still  abides.  It 
abides  now  that  the  little  one  has  become  a 
thousand — in  the  day  of  him  every  year  of 
whose  administration  has  been  an  annus  mira- 
bilis. 


14  DAY  USE 

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